Jade Knight exclusive interview – My son asked me: Do you love rugby more than me?
Jade Knight, the Wales scrum-half, stares out into the English Channel as she recalls the moment in April, following a Six Nations defeat to Scotland, that she decided her international rugby career had to end. “I came home after the game and my son asked me ‘do you love rugby more than me?’,” she says. “And it was at that point it really hit home and I felt it was time to hang my boots up.”
Knight has dedicated herself completely to her sport but even with the rescheduled World Cup now just 12 months away, the lack of support she has been offered as one of the few mothers playing for a home union has left the 36-year-old with no other option but to call time on her Wales career.
“Had the World Cup gone ahead this year, I would have hung on but mentally I cannot do another year.” Knight tells Telegraph Sport, her voice breaking. “I just can’t.”
Knight, speaking at her home in Jersey, paints a picture of a systemic and cultural failure to support rugby-playing mothers. She explains that, such was her commitment to try to make the World Cup squad, she opted to take a career break from midwifery and move back to Wales. The hope was that the move would allow her to focus on being a mother to six-year-old Emrys while also competing at the highest level in the Six Nations and beyond to the World Cup.
But instead of finding herself feeling like the sporting “super mum” that Olympians such as Laura Kenny and Helen Glover have come to represent, the Saracens star felt herself become increasingly isolated and anxious about seeking support.
Knight, although not having to worry about making hospital shifts, struggled with how little time she was spending with her son and felt uncomfortable about approaching the Welsh Rugby Union about her situation. “There was very minimal support as a mum. I would still go days without seeing my son, which was nuts as I wasn’t working – I was just playing rugby,” she says sadly.
“I would drop him off to school and have the whole day off when we wouldn’t train and then when he was finished school I would have to head to Cardiff as the women train in the evening. So the only time I would see him in the week was when I was dropping him to school.
“I didn’t feel comfortable going to the union to talk to them about it because this is where the time schedules are. I expected myself to be there as an athlete and it was just something I didn’t feel comfortable bringing up. It was really sad because during the Six Nations, my son mentally deteriorated and I felt awful because I felt I wasn’t being a good mum. But I also felt very alone as a player; I didn’t know who I would speak to in the Welsh Rugby Union to explain that I needed to get home to see my son a bit more. So many times at training, I asked myself ‘should I even be here?’”
Knight credits the union with providing the support of a sport psychologist for two months, who was available to all players, but it did not stop the pain nor did she feel comfortable talking to coaches about her deteriorating mental health. “I didn’t know where to turn. When you are talking about mental health, it is still a taboo anyway and the last thing I wanted to do was to mention how I was upset about my six year-old son to one of my coaches,” she says.
“It was a really lonely time. Sport is a very intense place and especially when you get into the competition phase. I was back in Wales on my own with Emrys and I didn’t know who I could turn to for support. And to top it all off, I had some comments from people saying I was a bad mum for choosing to play rugby and that I should be at home with Emrys more. I had my grandmother to support me at home but other than that I had no support with rugby.”
She believes that the culture of rugby union in accepting mothers and discussing issues like menstruation is lagging behind other sports and that coaches need to step forward and open the dialogue with players as has happened in many WSL football sides. Many British Olympians are supported through the English Institute of Sport’s SmartHER initiative where both coaches and athletes receive talks around all aspects of female athlete health including motherhood giving male coaches advice on broaching these issues.
“There is a culture shock between sports, I played touch rugby for Wales and I know it is considered more amateur than rugby union but the coach offered that I could have Emrys onsite and that I could work my breastfeeding schedule around training. The coach initiated that conversation,” she says. “That needs to happen more in rugby, especially when the coach is male, I feel really uncomfortable talking about things like periods, breast feeding, or even childcare but if they brought it up it smashes the barriers straight away.
“There was never any conversation about me having a six year old during the Six Nations with Wales. The head coach once said I could speak to him but I didn’t want to speak about personal information to the head coach because you are always worried that will go against you with selection. I didn’t want to come across like I was weak or needed extra support.”
Knight had originally used Emrys as the motivation for her to win her first international cap in 2018 but believes the sport expects women to behave a certain way.
“I do feel as a female in rugby I have to come across quite tough and I don’t want to give any excuses not to be selected or to come across as weak. I am not sure if it is cultural or that we don’t like to talk about it. It feels like we are in a different era where we don’t talk about women’s health like they do in other sports,” she says.
“I generally try to switch off my mothering side when I am at training, which is such a shame because being a mum gives you such power as well. When I first came back to rugby I had Emrys’s date of birth on my boots and that would be my motivation, anytime I missed him, I would push myself to train at my max. Being a mother actually makes you so strong mentally. This year though I wasn’t able to harness any of that because I was missing him too much and I didn’t feel supported.”
Another indictment of rugby’s inconsistent attitude towards mothers is that one Premiership club with both men’s and women’s sides offers a creche to men - but not to the women. “I know there is one club that offers child care facilities to male players but not to the female players. For me having that facility would be incredible, I would be happy to pay, I don’t expect it for free but to have that option would have made such a difference. I was talking to a friend today and she was saying how it would be much easier for her as she is breast feeding to have her son on site, that would have made her life much easier,” she says.
Knight, thinking as a midwife, is alarmed by the general feeling in rugby that players should have children after they retire and points to the need for a maternity policy to be introduced across the home unions.
“A lot of women rugby internationals play until their mid-30s. And with my midwife hat on I start thinking that if players all wait until they retire there could be issues because from the age of 35 obstetrically a woman’s risk factors go up massively. So, why should women be at high risk to be achievers in sport?” she asks. “As rugby becomes more of a career, surely as women in other careers have the option to have children at whatever age, why should that choice be almost taken away from them in rugby?”
“There needs to be more open conversations about when a female player feels like when is best for her to have a baby. I think those conversations need to be had with your coach and particularly your international head coach about when is it best to have your baby, it can be planned around the World Cup cycle and have the opportunity to have your baby, have your time off and come back into sport.”
Knight, whose dissertation for her midwifery degree was around female athletes and maternity, is launching a business called Birthable where both female athletes and any mother will be able to get specialist support. As well as that and her regular hospital shifts, she has also thrown herself into a new physical challenge in the shape of Crossfit but her top priority is her son.
“With Emrys I want to be a good role model for him and I want him to chase his dreams, whatever that may be, he goes to the Crossfit gym with me and he knows how hard I work and I know when it is his turn, he will work hard because he has seen it. I think it is a shame that I am stepping away from international rugby but he has had a decent taste of it and it is time for me to give more back to him now.”
